Hey, everyone! Usagi here. I know this is a really late piece of coverage, but better late than never, right? I was lucky enough to get invited to the launch party for Leigh Bardugo’s sophomore effort, “Siege and Storm”. It was a lot of fun, and I tried to take lots of pictures to capture the atmosphere of the party as best I could. I know these are not the best quality pictures, but it was the best I could do with instagram.

First, here’s what I walked into at Hemingway’s Lounge in Hollywood when I got there:

A gorgeous cut-out of the book’s cover where you could take pictures dressed up like Ravkans!

I tell you, guys, I want to make Hemingway’s my new home bar/lounge. It’s a book junkie’s heaven, with it’s decor:

And when we got in (after being in a long, long line), here’s what awaited us:

…for those who were of legal drinking age, anyway. Free glasses of cherry grenadine-tinged champagne, complete with a Ravkan flag speared on a cherry inside. You can’t really see it too well here, but I did save the flag for later pictures.

The Master of Ceremonies was none other than the lovely David J. Peterson: linguist, translator, inventor of fictive languages (Dothraki, High Valerian from “A Song of Ice & Fire/Game of Thrones”, the Vo-Tan languages from “Defiance”), and all around awesome dude:

And brought Leigh fangirl delight when he revealed that her name was composed of a Dothraki verb and a High Valerian noun. If I remember that right – it might be the reverse. As Leigh’s a HUGE ASOIAF fan, she freaked out. It was adorable. No picture of that available. Once introductions and stories were told, things were handed off to Leigh, where she brought out her teenage diary, and started to talk about it. Specifically, things like what her teenage self wrote about life goals she wanted to achieve:

She read aloud from the diary, and even at 14-ish, Leigh was still the Leigh we all know and love today. Just a little more sarcastic. And snarky. She talked about writing, how that tied in with her 14-year-old-self’s goals, and it gave me a little hope and majorly warm fuzzies (and that wasn’t just from the champagne). Inspirational, and I was in need of that kind of talk. And then came reading from non-spoilery pieces of “Siege & Storm”:

And it was awesome. Afterward, there was a raffle (congrats to the winners – I wanted that swag bag, but oh well! :D), and then it was time to mingle and sign some books. Unfortunately, because of how my train was scheduled, I wasn’t able to stay to get S&S signed, but since I have book one signed, it’s all good. All in all, an awesome event! I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to stay more, mingle, and find friends of the blog that were in attendance.

So, here are other pictures from the party:

(Leigh reading from the diary)

Me & David, after fangirling out. From translator to translator, that is.

Because I dressed up tsarpunk style (or at least attempted it), I was awarded with this awesome Istorii Sankt’ya blank book. If you’ve read book one at the very least, you know how important this book is in the general plot of the trilogy.

The awesome Ravka passport envelope that had the raffle ticket, bookplate in it. And you can see to the right, the little Ravkan flag that was in the drinks.

Bookplate in the book! It looks awesome.

And finally…

The night’s total haul: a final copy of S&S and swag!

This was a lot of fun – and so much busier than the debut launch party at Skylight Books last year in Los Feliz. I can’t wait for next year’s party!